Australian 1st Woman To Swim Florida Strait

May 13, 1997|By From Tribune News Services.

KEY WEST — Battling nausea, stinging jellyfish, high seas and hallucinations of monkeys, an Australian swam 118 miles from Cuba to Florida on Monday to become the first woman to cross the shark-infested strait.

Susie Maroney, 22, swam 118 miles in 24 1/2 hours inside a 28-by-8-foot shark-proof cage before climbing out of the surf at Ft. Zachary Taylor State Park in the Florida Keys, badly sunburned and covered with welts from jellyfish stings. Her tongue was swollen from the salt water.

"It was the best feeling in the world. I was so glad to touch sand," she said. "Definitely, your dreams can come true.

"So many times, you think, `I just don't want to keep going,' " she said. "The hardest part was the night. It was so lonely. I was being stung by jellyfish."

Her team said she was the first person to swim the Florida Strait from Cuba to the Florida Keys--a claim that was disputed before she even reached land.

Walter Poenisch made the crossing in 1978 at age 64, but critics said no independent observers watched the trip to verify he was unassisted all of the way. Unlike Maroney, he used swim fins. His time was 34 hours 15 minutes. American marathon swimmer Diana Nyad twice tried and failed to swim the straits in the 1970s.

Maroney's trip began at about noon Sunday when she jumped into the water at Havana's Malecon sea wall.

The 5-foot-6, 127-pound marathon swimmer made the journey inside the cage attached to her escort boat. She was helped by a swift current and relatively good weather but 15-foot seas.

She said she replayed in her head episodes of TV's "Seinfeld" and her favorite pop songs to keep her spirits up.